"In other words, we must replace our existing system sustained by fear, greed and ignorance with one that is fair, inclusive, efficient, effective and mission-driven. Such transformation has occurred elsewhere."-MRP

Pentagon chief says all services will review mental diagnoses since 2001Washington PostPanetta's answer marked the first time that the Pentagon chief had said publicly that he had requested the review by all the services.

Child health advocates are losing the war over school lunches and that’s because they face exceptionally strong adversaries: the food and beverage industry. While it’s pretty obvious that more vegetables and less sugar at lunch would be a good start to healthier kids, we’ve recently seen Congress declare pizza a vegetable and kill a plan to reduce sugar, salt, and fat in foods marketed to children, while 24 states and five cities have seen efforts to tax sugary drinks fail. As Reuters tells us in a recent special report on childhood obesity and lobbying, 50 different food and beverage groups have spent $175 million lobbying on childhood nutritional standards since Obama took office — more than double the $83 million spent during the Bush Administration’s last three years.

As United Republic’s Jasper McChesney shows in the infographic below, it’s pretty evident that money has everything to do with government’s failure to help protect our kids’ health — when they need money from rich industries to campaign, they can’t effectively regulate those industries.

"The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.” —Michelle Andrews

I am struggling to provide ENOUGH care to my patients, so I am irritated by the mantra that we are providing too much care. I think that it is a mistake to blame the patients and providers for using what we have, instead of looking at the rich companies who make a huge profit on each of our transactions.-MRP

Single payer-do we have enough money to cover everyone?

Yes, we do. With the administrative cost savings alone of one source of payment, that we are already paying in inflated prices and profit margins, we can cover all of the people in the entire United States fully. It's a matter of distribution.-MRP

See Physicians for a National Health Plan fact sheets for this and more data.

Change is scary-what would single payer be like, and how would it work?

Basically it would be like what we have for medicare-but with negotiations between the private providers and the public trust about compensation rates. Becuase of the negotiations, the rates will be improved for the medical providers and be lowered to the public health trust. Medical providers, technology, hospitals, drug companies all negotiate together using our buying power, and their resources, working to provide medical and health services. Medical care is the same, your choice of doctors and places to be seen. You will actually have more choice because the private insurance company will no longer be the gate keeper to your care-you will.-MRP

One place for collection of the funds for the trust. One place for the rembursement for the services given from the trust. Collection in, payments out. An accounting office for the trust from us, to our medical providers. Our trust with laws to protect us from uncontrolled price hikes and confusing mixed up billing systems. Defense for fair compensation and fair pricing for medical services and care with the protection of our health, not greatest profit, as the fundamental drive of the system.-MRP

“This is truly a global movement,” said Dr. Julio Frenk, a former health minister in Mexico and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. “As countries advance, they are realizing that creating universal health care systems is a necessity for long-term economic development.”

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may be retired, but he's clearly lost none of the verve that saw him through 35 years on the court and landmark opinions for the ages like his scathing dissent in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Fittingly enough, the number of cities, towns and state legislatures joining him to condemn the court's decision to hand unprecedented power over our democracy to the corporate elite seems to grow by the day.

This week, citizens around the nation are taking actions to spotlight that rising tide and the grassroots movement that is driving it. At a time when the obscene amount of money that went into Wisconsin's recall elections has reminded us once again just what Citizens United has wrought, Resolutions Week events will remind America that democracy is alive and kicking in the growing momentum for the ultimate solution to the auctioning of our democracy: a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and related cases.

This May, Rhode Island became the fifth state legislature to demand a constitutional amendment to restore free and fair elections to the American people. A resolution to that effect overwhelmingly passed the Rhode Island General Assembly, while more than 200 cities and towns across the country have passed similar resolutions at the local level. Many more states, including California and Massachusetts, and local communities are waiting in the wings. [MORE]

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